The government warned that all supermarkets could be forced to reduce the number of plastic bags they hand out, in an effort to reduce vast amounts of waste .
The Environment Minister Ben Bradshaw said he wanted to introduce a code of practice, which all retailers could agree to, but he would not rule out a new law if this did not happen.
Speaking to the BBC Mr. Bradshaw said he was not sure that a tax on plastic bags, like that imposed in Ireland would be the right solution. A similar tax was launched in Ireland in 2002, which resulted in retailers charging customers around10 pence each for them.
Last month the same plans were rejected by the Scottish Parliament’s environment committee.
Waste Online estimates that UK supermarkets hand out 17.5 billion plastic bags every year, with a high percentage of these ending up in bins or on the streets.
This is more than 290 plastic bags per person in a single year.
“We need to tackle all disposable bags”, said Mr. Bradshaw speaking on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show .
“I’m not sure that a tax on them is the right solution. I think a voluntary code and if that won’t work then we can actually legislate either to ban them completely or to force a year-on-year reduction in their use”, he added.
On Thursday The Environment Minister will meeting supermarket representatives to discuss new ways of encouraging customers to re-use plastic bags .
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